Google+ Split Into 'Photos' And 'Streams'

FILE- In this Wednesday, June 27, 2012, file photo, Vic Gundotra, Google Senior Vice President of Engineering, talks about Google Plus at the Google I/O conference in San Francisco. Google is phasing out its "iGoogle" service that allows millions of people to personalize its home page with applications such as weather updates and stock quotes. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File)

Google+ is not dead. But it’s mutating.

The search giant has announced that it will break its social network service into two distinct products - Photos and Streams.

Google Streams is the portion of Google+ which is related to the sharing of content from different websites and users — the Twitter/Facebook Lite parts of Google+.

Google has not said that it will kill or change the existing Google+ brand, but neither service appears to reference the name in their current form.

Current VP of product Bradley Horowitz will head up both Google Photos and Google Streams.

Meanwhile Sundar Pichai, SVP of products, said at MWC 2015 that Hangouts will remain in place.

"For us, Google+ was always two things, a stream and a social layer," said Pichai. "The stream has a passionate community of users, but the second goal was larger for us. We're at a point where things like photos and communications are very important, we're reorganizing around that."